Sheena – Final Samples

Boy have I had a day of it! I woke up at 7 and popped in to check my email and my pc was dead. Dead as a DoDo! Gone, deceased, kicked the bucket, finito!

I first thought it had suffered a BSOD during the night and a quick flick on the reset button and it would fire back up, but it was history.

Arggghhhh all my pics were on it. I needed to access them for the final Sheena shots and also for my Crafty Cardmakers Spotlight tomorrow.

I disconnected it and dragged it out to the landing and using a new power cable plugged it in and fired it up and BANG! the fan fired and backfired in a milisecond and died.

Luckily I am a terrible hoarder and I had last year’s model still in a box in the cupboard so I dragged it out and disconnected the PSU and took it across to the now dead pc and plugged it into the Mobo and fired it up and bingo, the fan whirred into life. So praying that it was just the original PSU I swapped them over.

BINGO – a working PC!

However, I remembered now why the old one died. I think the PSU on that one was flakey and kept dropping power so often that eventually it fried the Mobo, so I can’t risk running it for too long without getting a new one. All I need just before the Christmas season having to shell out on PC parts.

Anyhow, whinge over. The last of my samples for Sheena.

BTW I realise that the card I posted on Friday actually crossed over the two stamp sets that Sheena had on C&C this morning! The bird was from one set and the sentiment from the other set of three. Oooops! Just goes to show though that what Sheena said was right, they can be mixed and matched and interchanged and still look good.

This is my second church card. I stamped this with Big N Juicy and then embossed it with the Wow holo sparkle embossing powder. The paper was a sheet of sort of skin tone pink that has been in my stash for years. It’s heavily embossed, but I didn’t like the colour so I just inked it over with the Big N Juicy pad to match the image.

The next one is the pub stamp again, but this time with the other sentiment, which was embossed again with the Wow powders, this time the clear fine. These sentiments are a beautiful delicate font and look really nice especially when they are embossed. Coloured with promarkers and matted onto craft and green cards.

The next one is the stream stamp. I love that you can just stamp these lovely large stamps and you can still see all the detail whether you colour them in or not. I stamped this one with Brilliance Galaxy Gold and embossed it with the gold powder. After I added some DI in shabby shutters (I think, lol) I roughed up the edge a bit and went around it with gold sparkle embossing power.

It’s not showing terribly well in the picture but the background has the ferns stamped in a range of different greens and with versamark to give that watermark look. I had previously stamped the ferns and embossed them with gold but was not happy with the way I had done it so rather than wasting it I used that to cut the scrolls out of which is why they have a gold embossed pattern on them. I made the flower myself using the spritz and scrunch method. This was from the same pearlised card as I used for the main card base. Have to say, if you want to do the spritz and scrunch method pick a card that is not coated like this because it was a difficult thing to scrunch and dried VERY stiff. Next time I shall use something a bit more malleable.

My final card is a second one of the bird. I have to say this was my favourite. I just love the bird and feel that you can make a quite large card with it, or like I have done here, a smaller square one. I stamped it out and coloured with promarkers and then trimmed it up with a nestie circle, and is has been overlaid onto a marianne doily mat.

I stamped the pine branch over and over in the corner of some prima card to make a background for my lovely gardenia flower, and a sentiment in the opposite one. The lace is from my stash.

I shall be back tomorrow with my other DT work with something for Crafty Cardmakers, so please check back then if you can.

Sneeky Peak Day 4

Just finished watching the X-Factor, and it’s way past time Wagner left!

Anyhow, here is my fourth peak at Sheena’s latest stamp sets.

This one is the church. I love that this stamp can be so versatile. Obviously when showcasing Sheena’s stamps we want to use as many of her own stamps as possible, but the uses for this stamp are endless. I can see it as a condolence card, a wedding card, an anniversary card, something for a child’s confirmation, christmas card, etc. etc. I’m sure you can come up with lots of ideas of your own.

I stamped this with versamark dazzle and then went over it with Pearl-ex mica powders to reveal the image. The mat was made with an MS punch and further matted onto a pretty mat I bought in a kit.

I love the sentiment here.  As some of you know I am a pagan so I don’t go to church in the traditional sense. That is not to say I do not have beliefs though and I actually find this sentiment to be a beautiful one.

This church looks a lot like the one where my Great Gran is buried, but then I believe that it’s a norman one and they are prevalent in England, so I guess that’s why.

This second picture shows how different the image looks when the light source is adjusted slightly as the green tones in the mica powder have come to the fore here.

Don’t forget to tune into Create and Craft tomorrow at 9am and 12 noon to catch Sheena herself and some fantastic demos with these lovely new stamps. As usual you can see another sample on Gill’s Blog, Vicky’s Blog and Sheena herself’s blog.

Till tomorrow folks

Sheena – Sneaky post three

Here we are already at day three of the sneaky peeks, and these have probably not even reached  Sheena’s Château yet…… all hail the internet.

I just love the birdie and couldn’t resist posting one of him finally.

Blue tits are one of the few british birds that don’t migrate for the Winter. I believe a few do, but most stay behind. People always think of the robin in winter with his lovely flashing red breast but the tit is such a delicate little birdie. He would make a great christmas card too I think.

Stamped and embossed with Sheena wow clear powder and coloured with promarkers. The ferns are stamped with Cottage Ivy Memento ink, as is the sentiment. I pounced around the edge of this one too. Am liking this pouncing as it gives a much softer look than using cutNdry foam with the inks.

I wanted to put a pine cone on here like Sheena did on one of her recent shows on Create and Craft, but wouldn’t you know, none around where I live at all!

When my Daughter was born and to the age of 5 we lived next to a little winding footpath which had pine trees either side of it. The smell was amazing as you walked through it. Anyhow one day she tells her Daddy she wants a pine cone, not just any old one, but ‘that one up there Daddy, the one on the end’ as she points a good 25 foot into the air. To my sheer terror he climbed the three and then crawled along the branch and then shook like mad to dislodge this pine cone…..  I couldn’t watch as I was convinced he would land dead at my feet long before the cone, but PLOP it dropped at our feet and my little girl squealed with delight. The sad thing is she probably threw it away a week or so later KIDS!

Oh dear I am rambling again. Can you tell I don’t get out much?

Pop along to Sheena, Vick and Gill’s blogs to see their offerings for today, and don’t forget to check back tomorrow.

Sneaky peeky Number 2 a la Sheena

Here is my second post for the stamps to be aired on Sunday 22nd at 9am and 12am.

I notice no one has yet posted any flower cards so I thought I would get in first with this one.

I made an easel with the Marianne die and the Crafters Companion snow white Centura pearl card. I also have some matching paper, which I stamped the image onto and coloured in with promarkers. I love snowdrops, they give a hint of warm days to come and cheer up even the most miserable winter day. The sentiment comes from the same stamp sheet and is so appropriate for these flowers. The butterflies are resin ones I have had in my stash since Adam was a lad.  The little flower was a charm and boy was it hard work snapping the bail off of it!

I am entering this into a few challenges.

Creative Inspirations Challenge Blog – Anything Christmassy/Winter

The Shabby Tea Room – What are you thankful for – I am thankful that the winter does not last forever as I hate the cold and the dark nights depress me, snowdrops epitomise this beautifully for me.

Creative Card Crew – Let’s give Thanks – For the same reason as above

Delightful Challenges – Baby It’s Cold Outside

By the way, here are a series of ‘tidy shots’ cos I just couldn’t go to bed last night leaving my craft room looking so awful, and I have in the past accidentally thrown something away because the mess pile became so large that something useful got gathered up with the rubbish and dumped. Indeed last night I spent a jolly hour playing ‘hunt the Big Shot textures embossing mat’, which had snuck itself under a set of drawers….. hmmm I think that the invible (her way of saying it, not a typo) man of my Daughter’s youth could be back.

She always said it was the Invible Man, and I used to quote this poem to her

When I was walking down the stair

I saw a man who wasn’t there,

He wasn’t there again today,

Oh how I wish he’d go away!

Grrr can anyone tell me how to make Windows Live Writer NOT put line breaks between carriage returns!

Right I am off to play sort the hotfix gems. I must be mad 3 x 1440 to be sorted into separate colours ……. wish me luck!

Sheena Sneaky Peek Number 1

So here I am a day and a dollar late as usual.

Following up from last week. Ems is covered in bruises poor love, but is back at work. The Police never got back to her so we are both thinking that these so and sos are likely to be getting away with it! Beggers belief, but there you go.

To the business in hand ….

Sneaky peek number 1.

This is a pub! No never!!!! Well I might have made such a bad job of it, you would be thinking it was the Co-op! I thought this was so ironic bearing in mind recent events. However, I love this stamp and it will certainly be suitable for all sorts of things but especially for the men in our lives.

I stamped this onto watercolour card with black soot DI and dragged some of the ink out to colour it.

I pounced (gotta love that term) around the outside with pumice stone DI, using a shaving brush, errrr I mean an ink duster! Seriously folks, a shaving brush works just as well and the pound shop is the place to be looking for them. I also pounced the background paper because the pattern was too white, so I pumice stoned that as well to tone in with the image.

The image is mounted onto lush glitter card and a the whole thing was layered onto black card. I added a few gardenias, which I also pounced and a sentiment…….. I just love the sentiment!

I have to apologise for the picture here, but these Winter nights come around so quickly I ran out of light for photographing my samples and even though I have an excellent daylight lamp it still is never as good as natural light and produces a bit of glare. I had the devil’s own job getting this one to not be blurred.

So don’t forget (although I am sure you have already been there) to check out Sheena’s blog,  Vicky’s blog and our brand new teamie Gill’s blog. We should all be showing a card a day until Sunday when we will get the pleasure of seeing the lovely Sheena on Create and Craft TV. I do hope she remembers to take her hat!!!!!

I have a fasting blood test in the morning and I am already starving. ‘Tis psychological, tell someone that they are not allowed to eat after 8pm and all of a sudden that’s all they can think about. After I get back I shall be posting another pic and sharing some news which I have been keeping to myself for a week now. Mostly cos I haven’t had the time to do a post on it, lol.

Just before I go, here is what my craft room looked like half way through this afternoon, so you can guess what my first task will be tomorrow can’t you! Yep, putting my feet up with a cuppa and a bickie, oh dear food again.

More Sheena on the Way + A Tale of Woe!

It's been a week of mixed blessings. I recently took delivery of some more stamps from Sheena Douglass, so watch this space in the coming week for some sneaky peeks. There is something in there for everyone, even the men in your life!!

I should have been getting on with them this morning, but as my friends over on Craft Telly know my Daughter was assaulted at work yesterday and thrown ten foot across the bar into the stage area. The poor little love is having difficulty walking today and has bruises on her bruises on her hip, back, buttocks, one arm, back of her neck and down the outside of one breast. The Doc has told her to expect to be very sore for two to three weeks. I hardly got a wink of sleep last night worrying what might have happened, and have been awake since 4am. I am just about done in and am back to bed in a bit. Now I know that she hasn't broken anything I might be able to catch up on a bit of sleep.

This is typical Ems, she stepped in because the Landlady was about to get her head stoved in with a barstool and found herself flung across the bar for her trouble by a hulking great man. Shame on him!! She was always the one getting picked on at school because she stood up to the bullies who were making the smaller kids' lives a misery. I guess I would rather have her that way than look the other way and pretend that someone isn't being hurt, but it frightens me what could happen when she acts all Xena Princess Warrior in someone else's defence!

I do have a bit of good news to share, but I will delve into that later, when it has been announced and I am feeling a little more human. 

Anyhow, I shall post my sneaky peeks towards the middle of next week, so keep an eye out!

CCM 33 Stitching

Apologies if anyone was looking for this yesterday, but for some reason all day yesterday I thought it was Sunday, that’s what gaining an hour will do for me! LOL

This fortnight we are concentrating on stitching over at Crafty Cardmakers. Now that could be faux or real, and the real could be machine or hand, you could stamp your stitches or rub them on. Simple or complicated, you choose. We are sponsored by who is offering a £10 voucher for use anywhere in her store, which is also post and packing free. 

I went with hand embroidered rather than stitched I guess, as I just love stitching on my cards and would do much more of it were it not quite so time consuming. So my first step was to choose a design and then how I wanted to use it. I went for these borders mirrored top and bottom. I had intended to use them left and right, but when it came time to stamp an image I chose one that needed to be horizontal so just had them top and bottom instead.

So having printed and pricked the design and stamped my image I then coloured it in with promarkers, and after that chose my threads to match the colours in the image. If I had been going to use patterned papers I would have picked them at this stage too because trying to match everything after you have stitched can be a nightmare and it’s impossible to change the colour of your stitching once it’s done, so much easier to do that last to match everything else. I matted it onto some bluebell coloured paper which I cut to size and trimmed with my MS doily heart punch.

I chose plain colours for this because I thought the image and stitching were pretty enough without the need for patterned papers.  I made the embellishment myself from some ribbon and thread and a couple of flowers and a heart pin which I coloured with some cheap kids’ dimensional paint, as it was the wrong colour and I found that promarkers didn’t want to stick to it. A few self adhesive gems in the centres of the stitched circles completed my card. Do pop on over to Crafty Cardmakers and catch up with my teamies’ creations and, of course, enter the challenge for that great prize.

I am entering this into the following

A Spoon Full of Sugar – Relish to embellish – my home made embellishment above

Creative Card Crew – Let’s Punch It

Simon Says Stamp – Punch ‘em

4 Crafty Chicks – Roll With The Punches

Wee Memories – Free For All / Anything Goes

 

A Few challenges and a DT call

Donna at Bearly Mine Designs is looking to expand her Design Team and I am entering this card.

Like my post last week for Crafty Cardmakers I am using some of Donna’s gorgeous ‘FREE’ papers as the basis for my design.

I chose three that matched beautifully and used them to make this easel.

The image is from Sheena Douglass and I stamped it and embossed it with her Sheena Wow platinum sparkle embossing powder and then coloured it with cosmic shimmer paints. The only paper that isn’t from Bearly Mine is the aqua coloured paper at the very back of both the image and sentiment mats as I wanted something to make the image pop off the card a bit more. The ribbon is from my stash and the flowers I made by dismantling some Wild Orchid flowers and spraying them with Glimmer Mists in Timeless Lilac and Touch Of Mica in Purple. I also sprayed some plain white flowers with the Glimmer Mists and another larger flower I smeared with versamark and embossed with the Sheena Wow Powders again, and I did the same with the flourishes on the top of the card as I wanted some glitter but not too bright like mirri would have been. I went for some simple butterflies for the top of the card as there are some gorgeous colours/patterns in the papers and I wanted them to be able to be seen. I did just ground round the top sheet’s edge with a white gel pen though to match it in a bit to the design on the lower sheet. I have stuck a row of little purple gems as the prop to make the easel stand and made my own sentiment from a quote I found online and using two different fonts turned it into a birthday quote as this is going to be a birthday card for a friend. Another flourish which I sanded down from mirri and another flower finishes it off.

I am also entering this into the following challenges:-

Colour Create – The colours purple, aqua and white with the optional extra of swirls.

ABC Challenge Blog – G is for Glitter

Papertake Weekly – Sparkly and Bright

Lexi’s Creations – Anything Goes

Bearly Mine Designs – Design Team Call